In Nick de Semlyen’s book The Last Action Heroes, a stellar survey of late 20th century Hollywood’s musclebound, killing-machine megastars who blew up bad guys as often as they blew up budgets and box office receipts, the author includes this vignette regarding Sylvester Stallone’s comedy bomb, Oscar:
Stallone’s first pure comedy since Rhinestone wasn’t a great match for his talents, requiring him to hustle relentlessly around a mansion set, upstaged by a succession of scene-stealers… When the high-energy farce test-screened in early 1991, reaction cards put an end to any wishful thinking that this would prove to be another Twins [an Arnold Schwarzenegger hit]. One viewer scrawled in pen on their card: ‘Why didn’t he take his shirt off and kill anybody?’
The moral of this Tinsel Town story?
First: life is short, so don’t watch Oscar.
Second: it is better to meet than to subvert the public’s expectations.
This is an important lesson for those seeking public office in today’s topsy-turvy political world. The public has experienced momentous tumult in terms of issues ranging from illegal immigration to abortion and has even seen in a chaotic matter of days the attempted assassination of a former president, the end of an incumbent president’s reelection campaign, and the ostensible nomination of his vice president to lead his party’s ticket. The very last thing the public needs is more surprises.
Following the attempt on his life, many of his supporters and even some of his detractors anticipated a “new” Trump, one who would appear more humble and less bombastic and, in their minds, more “relatable” to undecided voters. Initially, there were indications this may be the case, but Mr. Trump’s convention speech and subsequent appearances proved there would be no “new” Trump. While many lamented the fact, Mr. Trump was fortunate not to fall into this trap.
Despite the heinous assassination attempt, if Mr. Trump had suddenly become someone unrecognizable to the electorate, many in the public would have wondered if he had a personal conversion of conviction or a political conversion of convenience. Further, many of his supporters would have been disappointed had Mr. Trump become melancholy or milquetoast. After all, in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt, Mr. Trump’s instinctive reaction was a raised fist and a call to continue to “fight!” It was not a call for quiet contemplation upon the vicissitudes of fate.
In resisting the calls for a “kinder, gentler Trump,” the GOP nominee retained the singular character trait that has availed him well on his 2016 rise to the White House—perhaps less so in 2020—but which leaves him well positioned for victory in 2024. Indeed, it is a trait that not even his enemies deny and instead base every one of the scurrilous slanders upon. Namely, it is Mr. Trump’s authenticity.
While many believe the lack of a “new” Trump harms his current candidacy, there is stronger evidence that the “old” Trump’s authenticity is attracting new voters among minorities and blue-collar voters to the GOP and MAGA standards. They are attracted and can relate to a person who retains the courage of his convictions and refuses to be silenced by the machinations of his opponents, who often use the selective, coercive enforcement of the state’s police powers against him. To turn into a muted version of himself, Mr. Trump would not only risk alienating both these new voters and many of his old supporters. Their expectations subverted and disappointed, these voters could not help but wonder whether Mr. Trump’s post-assassination demeanor was a personal conversion of conviction or a political conversion of convenience. Of course, all the while, the left would incessantly argue to the public that it was the latter, just another Trump trick to steal an election.
Yet, by remaining himself and meeting public expectations, Mr. Trump has put the focus on Democrats’ Achilles’ heel regarding “authenticity.” In collusion with their media cohorts, the Democrat establishment’s handpicked, undemocratically nominated candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is hurriedly being “reintroduced” to the electorate. It makes sense, as for her 2020 run for her party’s presidential nomination, she received little support among her fellow Democrats and has continually garnered unfavorable ratings throughout her tenure as V.P. Given she is the second highest-ranking elected official in an administration whose disastrous domestic and foreign policy failures are legion, there is much to be “reimagined” (i.e., “rehabilitated”).
While the “retconning” of Vice President Harris transpires, the left will assume it has little to lose since the original version has fared so poorly in terms of popularity. But even poorly made original movies can be made even worse when remade. For what the original possessed was its authenticity, and while it may be a poor movie, its authenticity can render it entertaining—a “flick so bad its unintentionally good.” But the even lesser remake is often just a cynical, hubristic attempt to fool the public into paying for hot garbage that stinks so badly that it is not remotely entertaining but just plain awful.
Consequently, by retaining his authenticity, Mr. Trump is meeting public expectations and campaigning hard for the presidency. Meanwhile, the Democrat establishment and their media cohorts are recasting Vice President Harris in the lead role in a woke retcon of Oscar.
Do you really want to pay to sit through that?
***
An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.
Trump will remain Trump even if his script writers and advisors advise against his firebrand style. So far he instinctively appears to know what his base wants. Furthermore, he will never win over Democrats at this late date even if the stock market collapses and the mid-east explodes into a war like no other.
What needs to be addressed is Kamala’s exploitation of her sex and how she used it to get where she is. Was she voted in as the Democratic candidate? No! It was given to her. She slept around… a lot!
D. Trump was accused of rape and convicted of defaming Jean Carroll. Republicans might want to take a page from the same Democratic playbook. How would a Republican female candidate be treated on the “View” or on MSNBC and CNN? There are a lot of people, such as staffers, judges and politicians who Kamala was involved with, intimately, to garner support and to influence the politics of San Francisco. Do women really want to be associated with an achiever that became President this way? What type of image does that create? Not an image easy to defend.
Obviously D. Trump needs to focus on Kamala’s record. She did not do one thing to make necessities more affordable, to lower the cost of energy, to reduce drug deaths and sex trafficking of women and children at the wide open border. However, I can discuss that time and again with Millennials and Zoomers and still fail to obtain their interest. Crime is ubiquitous and growing but unless it is in the bubble they live in they tend not to notice. When the topic is switched to sex, and how women use it the way way minorities use DEI and Affirmative Action, you get their attention and you can’t get them off the topic. It is a reverse “Me Too” psychology and just the way men don’t want to be accused of sexual harassment neither do women want to be accused of advancements based on anything other than merit. And with a potential President who would not be where she is without promiscuous behavior such an image will cast a long shadow that will not be forgotten for a very long time. Clearly it is not something that D. Trump would likely engage in but someone has to make it a topic that can’t be ignored.
Well put. Harris is a fake in a party full of them. They gave her a makeover when she became VP, but it quickly got old. A Sandra Fluke, she isn’t. The woman who advocated before Congress for contraceptive insurance was an early example of Democrats’ carefully crafted public presentations. She was all exquisite coif, an elegant swath across her forehead rather than anything pertinent. That’s what drew your attention. Beneath it was an emotionless, unmoving, sincerely earnest face that said, ‘Do not doubt me.’ Also notable among Democrats’ achievements in the visual political arts were Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews, who went before the J6 committee. Carbon copies of Fluke, each was coiffed up and delivered their lines in the same staid, slow way. But that style wouldn’t fit Harris. She needed something to make her more accessible as a prolonged visual soundbite. So, Democrats went back to their psychologists, the people who do these things for them. They assessed that her best asset was her horse-head laugh and recommended that she use it early and often. Put-ons still worked well enough back in the day, before the Biden/Obama Disaster. Now, not even low-information voters would go for that BS.
DJT can’t take that tack directly but it would probably be an effective one delivered by female surrogates for the Trump campaign.
Exactly the point; and women can deliver that punch very well.
Harris is so bad that she was considered insurance that Biden would never be removed. Now she is supposed to be the insurance to keep these mobsters in perpetual power?